Lessons Learned in B2B Sales

Having recruited, interviewed, and on boarded employees for eight years I felt like I knew a thing about the importance of how new hires feel in their first 30 days on the job. It turns out I have so much more to learn. When I took on a Management role with Marcus Evans, I realised straight away that the New Hire OnBoarding & Training process needed to be massively revamped. Over my Christmas break, I took it upon myself to update all of the training materials, the quality of the content, and increase the robustness of the overall course. It had an amazing effect. The average amount of business written by our Sales Executives nearly doubled. This was 5 years ago. The effects have worn off.  Since that time, I've read blogs, sales books, and listened in on countless webinars to see what else we could do. I implemented other small changes like lunch with the management team and anonymous evaluation forms. I deeply believe in continuous improvement, but the effects were m...

Ten years after my first real sales job, I am starting from scratch. What an incredibly humbling experience. No matter how many inspirational quotes you see or uplifting articles you read, I will be honest, starting a new job is scary.  After nine years with Marcus Evans ( www.marcusevans.com ) traveling the world with people I love and selling a product I deeply believe in, it was difficult for me to believe I could find another company I feel as deeply about. When you sell an extremely premium product for a market leader, it's a unique challenge to find another product that you can apply that same passion to.  My personal thought is that the age old adage;  "the grass is always greener on the other side"  is pure nonsense. I find that it is unfortunately rare for most people to find a job that they love in the first place. If you've landed on green grass once, it seems unlikely that you'd be that blessed a second time around. I am humbled and grateful to ...

Quora - The best answer to any question https://www. quora .com/ If you are not already familiar with Quora, it is an amazing website/app/forum which has created a community to share information. You might think, this sounds like a lot of social media applications, but Quora is special in the quality of content provided.  Today, I want to talk about the free sales advice that is readily available on Quora. Next time you have a sales question about cadence, pay structure, lead generation, etc - ask Quora. You will be pleasantly surprised by the outcome.  You can start by taking a look at a few of my B2B Sales answers like those below at https://www.quora.com/profile/Leslie-Venetz/answers/Sales  How does one keep one's confidence up when selling advertising? Leslie Venetz ,  B2B Inside Sales Director 74  Views Watch or read client testimonials. Hearing your clients talk about how valuable the product is natural...

I hope this posts finds all of you well. I so appreciate you taking the time to visit my Blog to gather knowledge and improve your sales skills. While I post to this Blog as often as possible, I also put sales tips up on my LinkedIn, Twitter, & Quora accounts quite often. If you find the content on the Cold Calling Master Blog helpful, please follow me on the below accounts as well: www.linkedin.com/in/leslievenetz  https://www.quora.com/profile/Leslie-Venetz @LeslieVenetz https://plus.google.com/+LeslieVenetz 

I am often asked how I maintain consistently high sales to continuously exceed quotas. The answer - the ability to self-diagnosed.  Here are the steps I share with you to determine where I need to tweak my sales process to maintain a strong pipeline and consistent sales.  1. If I am not closing deal... It means I am not setting enough appointments with decision makers who are interested in buying from me. Diagnose why you are not setting enough quality appointments. Are you setting appointments with non-decision makers? Are you not setting expectations that you would like do go business and close a deal? Are you failing to set a specific follow-up time so that you become a bother? 2. I am not getting to a point where I can even establish follow-up appointments... My sales pitch and sales cadence are not working. Am I asking enough questions during my sales calls to uncover the client's needs? Am I truly listening to my client so that I can demonstrate my in...

I recently explored the importance of using unique verbiage in our sales conversations to increase our credibility, competence, and ability to convey meaning with fewer words. Shortly after beginning my first corporate sales job, I was handed a portfolio that was completely new to me. I was asked to spearhead our Electric Utility vertical. Admittedly, I was nervous because I don't have an Engineering degree, I didn't have contacts in that industry or any real concept of what utilities needs were. However, within 3 years of taking over the portfolio we grew from two products to eight products, expanding outside of just utilities into the greater energy arena. In order to quickly become a (remedial) subject matter expert in this space and have natural, authentic conversations I needed to have a deeper understanding of the fears, passions, and needs of my prospects. 3 Tips to Make Yourself a Sales Natural 1. Develop a passion by educating yourself. I was already passion...

I a recent Morning Motivational Meeting we asked ourselves - "Why are Gatekeepers so Frustrating?" The better a gatekeeper is at their job, the more likely they are frustrating to deal with. Why? Because their job is to make sure that all callers are screened and to limit the number of cold calls or even warm calls that their boss takes on a daily basis.  A phrase we often hear in sales is Overcoming Gatekeepers - I take issue with this phrase because you don't ever "overcome" a gatekeeper if they don't intend to connect your call to their boss. Instead, I propose we circumvent gatekeepers. Below are a few of my top techniques to make the most of every phone call. Techniques to Circumvent Gatekeepers 1. Ask for a better time to reach the decision maker and let the gatekeeper know you will call back versus leaving a message and hoping the prospect calls you back. Clearly, this technique can only be used a limited number of times, but is a good w...